Left to Our Own Devices

“For years, humans have relished opportunities to kick, punch, trip, crush, and run over anything remotely resembling a robot. This penchant for machine violence could move from funny to potentially concerning as a new wave of humanoid robots is being built to work alongside people in manufacturing facilities. But a growing body of research suggests we may be more likely to feel bad for our mechanical assistants and even take it easy on them if they express sounds of human-like pain.” Researchers tortured robots to test the limits of human empathy. (Instead of expressing sounds of pain, the robots might just want to play a scene from RoboCop or Terminator.)